Frank-Walter Steinmeier

FrankWalter Steinmeier German ˈfʁaŋkˌvaltɐ ˈʃtaɪnˌmaɪɐ born 5 January 1956 is a German politician who has served as President of Germany since 2017 He was previously Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017 as well as ViceChancellor of Germany from 2007 to 2009 Steinmeier was ChairmaninOffice of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe OSCE in 2016 Steinmeier is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany SPD holds a doctorate in law and was formerly a career civil servant He was a close aide of Gerhard Schröder when Schröder was MinisterPresident of Lower Saxony during most of the 1990s and served as Schröders chief of staff from 1996 When Schröder became Chancellor of Germany in 1998 Steinmeier was appointed UnderSecretary of State in the German Chancellery with responsibility for the intelligence services From 1999 to 2005 he served as Chief of Staff of the Chancellery Following the 2005 federal election Steinmeier became Foreign Minister in the first grand coalition government of Angela Merkel and from 2007 he additionally held the office of vice chancellor In 2008 he briefly served as acting chairman of his party He was the SPDs candidate for Chancellor in the 2009 federal election but his party lost the election and he left the federal cabinet to become leader of the opposition Following the 2013 federal election he again became Minister for Foreign Affairs in Merkels second grand coalition In November 2016 the governing CDUCSUSPD coalition which held a large majority in the Federal Convention nominated him as candidate for President of Germany He left the cabinet on 27 January 2017 He was elected president by the Federal Convention on 12 February 2017 with 74 of the vote On 13 February 2022 he was reelected by the Federal Convention for a second and final term with 78 of the vote Steinmeier is known as a reformminded moderate within the SPD As chief of staff he was a principal architect of Agenda 2010 the Schröder governments reforms of the welfare state His lenient policies toward countries such as Russia and China have earned him criticism both in Germany and internationally and he has been criticized for prioritizing German business interests over human rights Description above from the Wikipedia article FrankWalter Steinmeier licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia